COMMODITIES-Brent crude at 9-month high; soybeans slump

By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Oil prices hit nine-month highson Friday and metals markets rallied as well on stronger tradedata out of China and the United States, putting commodities upbroadly for the first time in three days. Heating oil and natural gas also rose as a powerful blizzardover the U.S. Northeast should ramp up heating demand there. On the metals side, copper prices snapped a three-daydecline. A softer dollar, a surge in Chinese imports and asharper-than-expected drop in the U.S trade deficit for Decemberattracted buying. In grain markets, soybeans fell sharply after the middayrelease of a monthly report in which USDA raised its forecastfor global ending stocks of the oilseed. Soft commodities such as coffee and sugar also bucked thebroadly higher trend in commodities. Premium coffee gradearabica fell to an nine-week low and raw sugar touched a 2-1/2-year low, pressured by expectations by hugeBrazilian harvests. The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index rose by a modest 0.1 percent by 2:30 p.m. ET (1930GMT). For the week, the commodities bellwether was down 1.3percent -- heading for its sharpest weekly decline in a month --largely because of a broad market tumble onMonday.

BRENT CRUDE HITS MAY HIGHS Benchmark Brent crude oil in London hit its highest sinceMay after Chinese crude imports rose to the third highest dailyrate on record. China's overall exports and imports were muchstronger than expected in January, signaling a rebound in theworld's second biggest oil consumer. Goldman Sachs, one of the most influential banks in commoditymarkets, said Brent's rally this year appeared "less driven bysupply shocks and instead by improving demand." "Global oil demand has surprised to the upside in recentmonths, consistent with the pick-up in economic activity," thebank's analysts said in a research note. It advised clients tomaintain a long position in the S&P GSCI Brent Crude TotalReturn Index. Brent's front-month contract rose up to $119.17, thehighest since May, and at 2:20 p.m. EST (1920 GMT) was up 1.4percent, or $1.63, at $118.85, on course for a fourthconsecutive week of gains. U.S. crude's front-month was down 0.1 percent, or 11cents, bringing the disparity between the two crude grades toleast to $22 a barrel.

BLIZZARD KICKS UP OIL PRODUCTS, GAS  In heating oil and natural gas, traders were watching apowerful blizzard in the northeastern United States that coulddrop up to three feet (nearly one meter) of snow from Friday toSaturday, potentially causing a spike in heating demand.

Heating oil's front-month rose 1 percent in New Yorktrading to near $3.24 a gallon as the winter storm bore down onthe northeastern United States. Natural gas's front-month was up 0.3 percent at$3.294 per million British thermal units. Gasoline rallied as motorists, mindful of the severe fueldisruptions after last year's Hurricane Sandy, rushed to filltheir cars, leading to shortages in parts of New York City.Gasoline's front-month jumped 1.7 percent to above $3.05a gallon.

COPPER UP WITH CHINA IMPORTS Copper rose mainly on higher Chinese imports of thecommodity in January. China, the largest copper buyer accounting for around 40percent of refined copper demand, imported 350,958 tonnes ofcopper in January. That was almost a 3 percent rise fromDecember, helped mostly by importers bringing forward coppershipments to avoid delays during a week-long festive holiday inChina next week. "We expect imports to start rising again in March, parallelto higher seasonal demand, which should support copper prices inthe medium term," Commerzbank said in a note, referring toChinese copper demand. Three-month copper in London closed at $8,295 atonne, up 1.2 percent on the day.